Scottish poetry, 1945-2010

Riach, A. (2016) Scottish poetry, 1945-2010. In: Larrisy, E. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to British Poetry, 1945-2010. Series: Cambridge companions to literature. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, pp. 148-162. ISBN 9781107462847 (doi: 10.1017/CCO9781316111314.011)

Abstract

This chapter begins with a survey of anthologies of Scottish poetry from just after the Second World War to the twenty-first century, then examines the work of the major poets of the era, Hugh MacDiarmid, Sorley MacLean, Norman MacCaig, Hamish Henderson, George Mackay Brown, Iain Crichton Smith, George Campbell Hay, Edwin Morgan and others, going on to the poets writing predominantly through and after the 1970s, including Liz Lochhead, Jackie Kay, Kathleen Jamie and others. An overarching argument tracks the proposal of a multi-faceted, multi-linguistic distinctive national identity for Scottish poetry in the 1920s-30s, deepening through the post-war poets in terms of their own widely different geographical and linguistic locations or 'favoured places', to the pre-eminence of gendered identities in the poetry by women, thus forming a journey balancing 'external' concerns of national and international politics with 'internal' concerns of the local, domestic and personal, and cognate matters of biology, nature and ecology, all within the context of national self-determination.

• Item Type: Book Sections
• Status: Published
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Riach, Professor Alan
• Authors: Riach, A.
• College/School: College of Arts > School of Critical Studies > Scottish Literature
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• ISBN: 9781107462847
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2015 Cambridge University Press
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher